Co-Op mode

[SuperNeoThe1]

Me and my friends are huge fans of the game but there is no way for us to enjoy the game together. I understand the gameplay is revolved around single-player and the feeling of loneliness and of how cut off from civilization you are. But I suggest an option for co-op in the survival mode where there can be a maximum of 2 or 3 players. This could maybe be achieved in the form of one playing as Mackenzie and the other one playing as Astrid who then have to survive together. What do you think?

[Syraith]

Forum has a couple of hundred threads regarding multiplayer already 😋

General consensus is it would be fun, but not possible to implement due to the time functionality (can’t speed past things, all would have to be real game time). 
 

There are other factors but that’s the gist of it 😁

[SpanishMoss]

Co-op mode has been suggested about 1000+ times on this forums, and the answer (from hinterland) is no, the game mechanics are just too deeply rooted in single player, that they would all have to be changed or modified to enable multiplayer. Hinterland is a smaller dev team, so it would take 2+ years to even come close to implementing co-op. It would be more efficient to make an entirely new game rather than to modify this one. Please... stop asking about co-op, its not happening.

[manolitode]

Great idea, I really like it. Time function is problematic but not an impossible problem. You could have the option to accept all time consuming activities, "Player B wants to chop branch, 55 min, accept?". Or that you have to stick together and join in on waiting, harvesting meat, crafting etc, which is a more restricting option. But it means you would have to communicate a lot and tolerate the frustration of being bound to the other. 

[odizzido]

You could pass time when both players are doing so....so for example, person A passes 30mins cooking while person B is working for 45mins on rabbit gloves. Person B would (in theory) have 15mins left on the gloves and would either need to wait for 15mins to pass, or person A could start a new task.

[PolacoDaXT]

Well, isn't that hard to put coop on the game, the priority of Hinterland is to put new Chapters or stuffs on survival. If they really focus on a solution for the multiplayer it could goes really nice, you dont need to reformulate all the mechanics, you just need to get the right ones. Look for skyrim, that potato is full of time warps and bugs that can ruin any project of Multi, and see how good Skyrim Together is. Or about Don't Starve Together, when Klei said the game was a unique single player experience. Look how many years this game have, if they stop saying inst possible and thinking a way to make it, could go right. 

[Old Hermit]

I may be wrong, but i think that the problem is not the time skipping feature issue, but mostly the modeling/animation required (u should be able to see your partner's movements).
Modeling and texturizing several clothings and gears, animations for animal struggles, falling/sprain, use weapon, crafting, etc etc

It's a ton of hard work.

About the co-op interactivity and time sync, as some peoples said above, the solutions exists. Just balance it all and implement somehow.

(using google translator)

[Syraith]

21 hours ago, PolacoDaXT said:

Well, isn't that hard to put coop on the game...

I’m sorry but comments like that are a huge slap in the face to developers.

It is incredibly time consuming to do what is being proposed. In terms of difficulty maybe not, but the amount of resources and time make this a monumental task.

To start, character models. Animations and full body renders of the player that aren’t there currently. Camera motions are, but not the animations.

Completely reworking the AI of animals to support multiple targets.

Converting a build designed to load/operate one player’s movements through the world to having at least two running at the same time. There are tricks to utilize system resources to do this without dropping frame rates  and such that are likely not there currently. You’d have to go to a completely different running build.

Even if you solve all that, how about making the mechanics work better? 
 

What if a player is being mauled, how do you change the mechanics to save the other? Apply medical treatment? Other tasks like harvesting? Can two harvest the same animal?

Im going to stop there but people seriously need to stop making comments like this saying how “easy” something is to do in game development.

[PolacoDaXT]

On 4/4/2021 at 11:34 AM, Syraith said:

I’m sorry but comments like that are a huge slap in the face to developers.

It is incredibly time consuming to do what is being proposed. In terms of difficulty maybe not, but the amount of resources and time make this a monumental task.

To start, character models. Animations and full body renders of the player that aren’t there currently. Camera motions are, but not the animations.

Completely reworking the AI of animals to support multiple targets.

Converting a build designed to load/operate one player’s movements through the world to having at least two running at the same time. There are tricks to utilize system resources to do this without dropping frame rates  and such that are likely not there currently. You’d have to go to a completely different running build.

Even if you solve all that, how about making the mechanics work better? 
 

What if a player is being mauled, how do you change the mechanics to save the other? Apply medical treatment? Other tasks like harvesting? Can two harvest the same animal?

Im going to stop there but people seriously need to stop making comments like this saying how “easy” something is to do in game development.

    It's the same point right now, is not impossible to asnwer a solution for every problem you quoted, but is a lot of time to do it, so whats the point? You wanna a unique survival experience that can be done with time, affection and love or new clothes in-game. (The easy part that i said was about don't staying weeks on just one problem, not about the time taken for an entire project)

[SpanishMoss]

To summarize everyone's points, No, it is not impossible to make TLD multiplayer. Yes, it would be pretty cool. Is it practical? No. The amount of game mechanics that would need to be modified would be monumental, in addition, Hinterland is a business, not a charity, and while they value their game more over money, profit's are still a big factor in success. If the dev teams dropped what they were doing and attempted a port to multiplayer, we could expect that in a few years. But that would mean no updates to the game, and without updates, people would be less interested in buying the game (or rebuying it). Ok, but what if they did updates WHILE working on the multiplayer port, well, if about 25% of staff was devoted to multiplayer work, it would take ~3x as long to complete or about 6 years, which is quite a while. Not only would it take longer to finish multiplayer, but it would also take longer to make the regular updates. There is no logical reason to attempt a multiplayer port, it would either take a while but have lost interest from the community, or take a lot longer but still be relevant (maybe). Even if they did attempt it, with decreased sales because of the lack of updates would mean it would be hard to pay the employee's without some other DLC or update to keep it going. I hope you now see while it isn't impossible, it IS illogical.

-SpanishMoss

[PolacoDaXT]

Nossa bicho tá difícil pra entender que as pessoas não querem mais atualização de itens ou de região, ninguém vai recomprar essa bosta por causa de uma atualização que adicionou um desafio épico dum cara verde que corre atrás, eu recomprei ano passado por que tenho esperança de que a empresa vai fazer algo realmente legal e que todos queiram, não ligo se é ilógico ou não trabalhar em um projeto, mas é o que queremos. 

[Syraith]

20 hours ago, PolacoDaXT said:

Nossa bicho tá difícil pra entender que as pessoas não querem mais atualização de itens ou de região, ninguém vai recomprar essa bosta por causa de uma atualização que adicionou um desafio épico dum cara verde que corre atrás, eu recomprei ano passado por que tenho esperança de que a empresa vai fazer algo realmente legal e que todos queiram, não ligo se é ilógico ou não trabalhar em um projeto, mas é o que queremos. 

They owe nothing to us in terms of content. People are still buying the game for what it is, not what it might become. That’s why I bought it. To each his own but again, saying something is “easy” to do is unfair. Expecting them to add content because we want it, yeah, it would be nice to get some of these things, but it’s their game, not ours. They will do what they want, when they can, and only as much as they can handle. So all we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride or get off now and move on to maybe come back later.

If I completely misread your Portuguese then I apologize 😶

[PolacoDaXT]

5 hours ago, Syraith said:

They owe nothing to us in terms of content. People are still buying the game for what it is, not what it might become. That’s why I bought it. To each his own but again, saying something is “easy” to do is unfair. Expecting them to add content because we want it, yeah, it would be nice to get some of these things, but it’s their game, not ours. They will do what they want, when they can, and only as much as they can handle. So all we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride or get off now and move on to maybe come back later.

If I completely misread your Portuguese then I apologize 😶

Now i see... you're a man of principles. Thank you for your for reading my portuguese text, looks like you got it right and sorry for the typing errors hahaha. Thanks again for convicing me and see ya.